Author: Timothy Perttula

Publisher:

Published: 2018-03-07

Total Pages: 54

ISBN-13: 9781985728660

The Strawberry Hill site (41SJ160) was excavated by the State Department of Highways and Public Transportation (now the Texas Department of Transportation) in 1974 in advance of a proposed expansion to F.M. 2693 in west central San Jacinto County in southeastern Texas. The site is only a few miles north of the original extent of Big Thicket vegetation in the region.This part of Southeast Texas has been occupied by aboriginal peoples from as early as ca. 13,000 years B.P., during the Paleoindian period, but mainly consists of sites that were used during Archaic (ca. 9,000-2,000 years B.P.), Woodland or Early Ceramic (ca. 2,000-1,000 years B.P.), and Late Prehistoric (ca. 1,000-250 years B.P.) periods. During historic period times, the region was home to the Bidai and Atakapa groups in the lower reaches of the Sabine, Neches, and Trinity River basins.The archeological record for both the Paleoindian and Archaic periods is marked by the recovery of a variety of chipped and ground stone tools from sites that were apparently occupied on short term and seasonal bases by hunting-gathering groups. By the Late Archaic, if not earlier, "a shift to the use of poorer quality and more local lithic resources...suggests reduced group mobility and more tightly defined group territories". The Paleoindian period lanceolate projectile points include Clovis, Dalton, San Patrice, Pelican, Angostura and Scottsbluff types, and the later Archaic period assemblages includes a variety of expanding and parallel-stemmed forms in Early, Middle, and Late Archaic period occupations, and Kent, Ensor, Godley, and Gary points throughout the latter part of the Late Archaic and Woodland periods. The Woodland or Early Ceramic period artifact assemblages in inland Southeast Texas have ceramic vessels, particularly sandy paste wares of the Goose Creek Plain series, including a few Goose Creek Incised vessels; Lower Mississippi Valley Tchefuncte and Marksville wares occur in low frequencies in inland Southeast Texas Woodland period sites. Sites of this period are part of the Mossy Grove tradition, and the major archeological component at the Strawberry Hill site is of the Mossy Grove tradition, and this is the focus of the ceramic studies to be discussed.